Annual report on the provision of aid to die from the Ministry of Health corresponding to the year 2022: 288 euthanasia services were carried out throughout the territory, exactly 50% of those requested (576). From June 24, 2021, the day the euthanasia law came into force, until now, 363 (75 in 2021) of a total of 749 requests for help to die have been carried out. In 2022, a third of applicants for this benefit died before their request was resolved.
In most cases, the administration was requested by the health team. 14% of applicants accepted the organ donation program in accordance with the specific protocol established and 135 people participated in transplants.
But who are the patients requesting help in dying? According to the data provided by the Ministry of Health, these are people between 60 and 80 years old, with very serious neurological or oncological diseases. The number of people who changed their minds or who requested a postponement of the provision of aid in dying is minimal, according to the aforementioned sources.
Benefits have been preferentially provided in the field of primary care and public health.
The number of denied requests was less than 20%, of which, after the corresponding claims before the Euthanasia Guarantee and Evaluation Commissions of each corresponding community, a third of those denied were considered favorable. This commission is the administrative body in charge of verifying compliance with the provisions of the law in its territorial scope, as well as authorizing the application of the provision of aid in dying.
In terms of communities, Catalonia is the region in which more patients request this benefit (175 in 2022) and in which more are carried out (91, 52%), well above the next autonomous region, the Community of Madrid In this community, 62 were requested and 61% (38) were carried out.
After the Community of Madrid, there are Andalusia and Valencia, which received 46 requests and 27 were implemented in the first case and 24 in the second. And from here, the rest of the communities.
Next in line are Murcia and LaRioja, with five requests, and four and two completed respectively. In the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, no request was registered, according to data from Sanitat.
